Creative Commons

Creative Commons is an organization, funded by the Center for the Public Domain and launched at Harvard Law School, that’s developing a new form of intellectual property licensing, along with “a Web application that helps people dedicate their creative works to the public domain — or retain their copyright while licensing them as free for certain uses, on certain conditions." Here’s a sample license summary generated by the app:

Attribution. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work. In return, licensees must give the original author credit.

Noncommercial. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work. In return, licensees may not use the work for commercial purposes — unless they get the licensor’s permission.

No Derivative Works. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display and perform only unaltered copies of the work — not derivative works based on it.